LGO Web Seminar Series

Prof. David Simchi-Levi, LGO Co-Director, MIT Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Operations Rules: Delivering Customer Value through Flexible Operations

Presentation Date: May 2, 2011

In recent years, management gurus have urged businesses to adopt such strategies as just-in-time, lean manufacturing, offshoring, and frequent deliveries to retail outlets. But today, these much-touted strategies may be risky. Global financial turmoil, rising labor costs in developing countries, and huge volatility in the price of oil and other commodities can disrupt a company's entire supply chain and threaten its ability to compete. In Operations Rules, David Simchi-Levi identifies the crucial element in a company's success: the link between the value it provides its customers and its operations strategies. And he offers a set of scientifically and empirically based rules that management can follow to achieve a quantum leap in operations performance. Simchi-Levi's rules—regarding such issues as channels, price, product characteristics, value-added service, procurement strategy, and information technology-transform operations and supply chain management from an undertaking based on gut feeling and anecdotes to a science.

Biography

David Simchi-Levi is a Professor of Engineering Systems and of Civil and Environmental Engineering at MIT and is considered one of the premier thought leaders in supply chain management.

His research focuses on developing and implementing robust and efficient techniques for logistics and manufacturing systems. He has published widely in professional journals on both practical and theoretical aspects of logistics and supply chain management.

Professor Simchi-Levi coauthored the books Managing the Supply Chain (McGraw-Hill, 2004), The Logic of Logistics (Springer 2005), as well as the award winning Designing and Managing the Supply Chain (McGraw-Hill, 2007). His new book Operations Rules: Delivering Customer Value through Flexible Operations was published by MIT Press in September 2010.

Professor Simchi-Levi has consulted and collaborated extensively with private and public organizations. He is the founder of LogicTools (now part of IBM), which provides software solutions and professional services for supply chain planning.

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